Learning Dvorak

Matt Mullenweg has been preaching the benefits of Dvorak for many years now. After his latest sermon, I decided it was finally time that I give it a go. I’m only using Dvorak here and there as it murders my WPM (I type like a letter per 5 seconds — this post took forever to write), but I did rearrange my keyboard keys to help me out:

(The F and J keys on my keyboard have their connectors turned 90 degrees, so they and the keys that replace them had to be rotated.)

Currently I type with only 2 or so fingers (hunt and peck without the hunting), so I’m hoping that switching to home row Dvorak will be better on my hands even though home row is really uncomfortable. We’ll see. 🙂

I’ve heard that having the letters on your keyboard can actually make it harder to learn. Instead you’re supposed to have a printout of the letters taped next to your monitor or something. That way you don’t get into the habit of looking at the keys all the time. When I did it, I used a keyboard that had been used so much the markings had worn off, so the qwerty letters didn’t confuse me, but Das Keyboard is a high-end option that would accomplish the same thing.

I taught myself Dvorak a few years ago. Daniel Nelson is correct. That is the preferred method, have a printout of the layout next to your screen. You’ll thank yourself for it after 2 weeks. It’s a blessing.

And yes, it’s like being multilingual. It’s like when I switch to speaking english instead of norwegian. I can type just as fast as before on qwerty; it only takes a one minute warmup.

The best way that I found to switch and train on Dvorak was to get a printout of the layout on a small card and then place it near your screen. That way you are not looking at the keyboard when you learn to type. Also it to good for building muscle memory.

About

Hi and welcome to my blog! My name's Alex Mills, although on the Internet I'm more commonly known as Viper007Bond (or just Viper). I'm a Portland, Oregon web developer who works for an awesome company called Automattic (you've perhaps heard of our WordPress.com blogging website). I contribute to the open-source blogging software WordPress and have written quite a few WordPress plugins. I'm also a big car nut who is really into Top Gear and run the show's biggest fan forums. You can read more about me on my about page.

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